24 March 2008

I tried something new. White people are always eating while in the bathtub (watch a few white people movies). Whether it's wine or cheese or crackers or whatever, they seem to enjoy it a lot.

So I tried it.

Naturally, eating is difficult in the shower, so I took my cup of coffee inside with me, left it as close as I could to the shower and proceeded to bathe. Half way through my soap cycle*, I stuck my head out like a groundhog and took a sip of coffee. It was tre weird. Warm fluids on outside, warm fluids on inside. I'll probably never try that again. My caucasian experience is over.

As for the bathtub thing, bathtubs are a waste of my time. Things are better separate.

Also. I have to sub for TPR today. Last time I was lounging around in the break room while my kids were doing their passages, I got ripped on for dressing too casually. What, what? So I dressed up this morning. Nothing too fancy - dockers, polo shirt, sweater, etc.

Then in AsianLit I was badgered for being a corporate sellout during discussion of some Vietnamese story involving capitalism (c.f. "Neighbors" by Dao Strom), after which I realized I had not one, but two polo products on.

21 March 2008

I stayed up last night to watch Smallville, so I went to sleep at 4am, which is fine since I usually run on 5 hours of sleep anyway, but I need an extra hour today.

So I went to life sciences library, put on four seasons and rested my eyes to let the harmony tickle my inner maelstrom, only to have some gruffly looking white dude snore loudly. I swear it sounded like small arms fire.

People kept passing by to make sure it wasn't me and then looking at me with the "wtf is he doing?" look. After about 15 minutes, I couldn't take it any more, so I was like "Hey... you're snoring kind of loudly".

He looked at me with glaring red eyes like I had said something about his mother and went back to sleep, only to start snoring again? I didn't pursue the matter. He looked like the kind that would openly attack me or something.

18 March 2008

I cringe at that title. We just got a brand new 20" iMac in lab, which is an awesome toy, and the more I stared at it, the awesomer it got.

I wanted one. She was calling to me. MMMmmmm...Leopard! What is it about this machine? I checked some specs... yes, my monitor at home is brighter (by 10 nits), and has the same resolution; my laptop is just as fast as Leopard hardware-wise, if not faster (XP is older). Yet she was still calling to me. Damn it, no. I won't become a convert. I already have 2 Apple products, and that should be enough. Hell, I already have OSX in my pocket. Bah.

Damn that siren Steven Jobs and his beautiful computers. I indulged myself and played with it for 20 minutes. It felt great in the beginning, but the feeling faded really quickly. It was just pretty, not much more. I kept wondering how much of system resources went into maintaining the GUI.

It then hit me. I got the same kinds of feelings as this dude. I am not nearly as cool to use OS X. I don't drive a Volkswagen or a Beetle or grow pot in my apartment. I drive a generic Japanese import and try to live off $1.50 a day for food. Lame-o-supremo. Even my description of myself sounds like a Taco Bell menu item. Jeez. I am wayy too lame for a Mac.

BUT, I like to get work done when I'm at my computer. I swear to god, I can tell if you're a Mac user. Whenever someone pulls out a Mac, it always starts with "Oh, I got this a couple of days/weeks/months ago", just to get the ball rolling on how awesome Macs are. Somewhere in the discussion, you'll find "stability" and "beauty" and how "everything comes installed". Shut the fuck up about it, please.

Well, I guess most of you mac users out there can sit around and bask in the idea that your life will probably crash before your precious OS X will. Damn hippies! Go get me a sandwich, and try not to mess it up this time.*

I wonder what'll happen when they run out of big cat names. I mean, how do you beat LEOPARD? Even Lion is lame compared to LEOPARD. Leopard conjures up this image of English people sitting around correcting themselves - That's not a Jaguar, it's a Leopard!

"Lion" reminds me of intemperate animals that escape from zoos and eat people.

Maybe I'm bitter I don't have one. Nah, that's not it. I could easily buy one.

14 March 2008

What the hell was up with last night Smallville episode? First, let me start off by saying that I have my reasons for watching Smallville, which I'll detail later.

Now. Product placement. Please, keep it subtle. Starting off the set in a STRIDE factory and basing the story around gum laced with Kryptonite is a new low for Gough/Millar. Throughout the episode, they kept referring back to STRIDE.

Chloe even says once "maybe next time they won't let the flavor last quite so long..", which, after hearing, I felt like breaking something. Near the end, Pete pulls out a pack of STRIDE, which is "kryptonite-free"* and throws the pack to Chloe.

Why the hell do I even watch this show?

Smallville runs a trite formula:

First 3 minutes: ZOMGZ scene. Oh no! Something is wrong in Smallville/surrounding areas/world.Opening creditsAnother 5 minutes: Useless banter, lame sub-plot, often with problem/mystery that can be solved in 10 seconds.Next 10 minutes: Cue friendly scene, ending with antagonism. Barn? Coffee shop? Take your pick. Replete with phrases like "Hemingway dust" and "surfing the slow lane". Chloe finds out something is wrong and lame sub-plot continues.Next 5 minutes: First confrontational scene, not involving Clark's powers. Lex prefers talking instead of killing everyone, which he could and (logically) should do.Next 5 minutes: Clark finds out something is wrong, with Chloe's help. CLARK AND CHLOE MUST WALK DOWN STAIRS**.Next 2 minutes: Clark is somehow disabled. USE OF GREEN KRYPTONITE IS A MUST. Continue shitty puns.Next 10 minutes: Clark is re-enabled, kicks everyone's ass, people bleed, lots of "stopping people from ____"Endgame: Blood is gone, no hard feelings unless its a girl, whose hidden feelings will resurface as some crappy sub-plot a few eps down the road. OPENING BARN SCENE WITH SOFT GUITAR MUSIC IS A MUST. People make comparisons to Clark, even though he's an alien, sub-plot ends.*** Continue shitty puns.

God damn it, I really feel homicidal after watching Smallville, but then I hit real life and I think - Hey this stuff is totally fake! All RIGHT! Back to school!

Oh, it was my birthday yesterday. I had a great dinner.

*: ...**: I cannot stress enough the (apparent) importance of this scene. Where the hell are they coming from? Upstairs? What the hell is upstairs?***: Dude, he's a god-damn alien. How are you anything like him? Also, Clark is a mega-douche, since he could be like Clark Kent, MD, PhD, JD, MBA, BS, LLD, etc etc etc in like 20 minutes and doesn't.

09 March 2008

Yeah. The people that made Stonebriar wanted its customers to feel so pretentious that they actually used centRE instead of center. See, that is unfitting in itself. Even CDC starts with "center". Anyway, an exercise bike was in need, so I was there, in Dick's Sporting Goods store (How is "centre" in accord with "Dick's"?), where I found this:

Man! That Asian guy is f***ing old! This picture cracked me up. "NO CHEST STRAP NEEDED"? How do you get an EKG without at least 6 leads?

Screenshots of KDE 4. Dare I say, it looks like... Vista? And the gui still sucks. Yes, there are merits to running Linux as a command line OS for efficiency purposes. But seriously? Give up already and quit ripping off Microsoft's (already overdone) Vista design.

Maybe one day these KDE enthusiasts will remove that huge baton from their buttocks and realize what they've been doing all along - "borrowing" from Windows and OS X and then complaining about it the entire time. Even then, it doesn't approach the aesthetic quality of OS X nor the functionality and adaptability of Windows.

01 March 2008

These unnatural levels of food really mess me up sometimes. I had about 4 hours of sleep (the night before this dinner), then about seven interviews, then a ton of food, so I slipped into a food/ exhaustion coma.

In my last interview, the PI used a magnetic paddle to alter the local mag. field around my brain and make my fingers and arms twitch, involuntarily. I hope I don't have brain cancer or something now.

It was weird not to have control over voluntary muscles.

I'm going to the Houston zoo today, then karaoke, then it'll all end tomorrow after breakfast.